Sports and Entertainment

Warning: Spoilers Ahead:

X-Men Origins:  Wolverine is not a great film.  It’s nowhere near the fun Iron Man was, and nowhere near as great as The Dark Knight.  I know I shouldn’t be comparing apples and oranges, but when movies of that caliber show the world what comic book movies can accomplish, it’s heartbreaking to know that Fox has a property that could easily be on par with those but they decide to dumb it down for the audience.

XMOW starts off when Wolvie is a kid.  His dad is killed in front of him and he goes all berzerker barrage on the man that did it.  But wait!!  The man he kills is actually his real dad and he and Sabretooth are actually brothers!!  The next 5 minutes show Wolvie and Sabretooth battling across all the major wars America has been in in the last century.  Yes, I said 5 minutes.  It’s basically the credits.  They could have done so much more with it.  Wolvie as a kid could have been much longer and better, the wars could have been full scenes in themselves, and the story could have been much better than Wolverine and Sabretooth getting shot at by a firing squad because of war crimes.   The firing squad fails, the brothers are recruited into a squad of mutants and that’s all in the first 15 minutes.

The story picks up there and Wolverine decides what the squad is doing is wrong, he quits and for some reason Sabretooth feels left behind and goes on a killing spree.  He “kills” Wolverine’s main squeeze and Logan decides to go to Weapon X to get all powerful to beat his brother.  30 minutes of the movie over.

The next 5 minutes of the movie is Logan’s full transformation into Wolverine.  The Weapon X program - Adamantium - Berserker Barrage #2 - Hugh Jackman ass.

5 freaking minutes of Weapon X.  That’s it.  Ugh.

35 minutes of the movie over, Wolverine now goes to DC Comic land and finds Ma and Pa Kent.  Hilarity ensues when uses his adamantium claws in a bathroom. Ugh.  Big Action sequence.  50 minutes of the movie over.

Wolverine then goes to all the other squad members to find his brother only to realize they are slowly being picked off by Sabretooth. This is where it gets really slow.   A stupid boxing match with Blob who looks ridiculous, a quick introduction of Gambit.  A lame alley fight.  More X3 garbage. An hour and 15 minutes over.

Some Cyclops action is put in there for good measure because we all know Wolverine knew Cyclops as a kid right?  Ugh.

Wolverine goes to a nuclear power plant to fight to the death with Sabretooth.  His girlfriend is actually alive and related to the White Queen.  Ugh.  Violence ensues.  A fight to the death with Deadpool who shouldn’t even be called Deadpool because they butchered the character so much.  A Wolverine-Werewolf bullet.  Bada Bing.  The End.

Yeah.  It was that lame.  I sat in the screening looking around at other fanboys who were looking at me like what the hell did we just watch?

There were some good things in the movie though.  Hugh Jackman is Wolverine.  He’s really got the character down.  All he needs is a good script.  Unfortunately, this movie ain’t it.  There were times that I felt like Jackman was pissed he had to do some of the things he was doing on screen.  I know he produced this bad boy too, but man….it just felt like it was forced at times.

Gambit was pretty cool but didn’t last very long on screen which was a pretty big let down.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool before the tranformation into another character was good.  Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool awesomely….but there is just that minor twist at the end where Deadpool is turned into….something that’s not Deadpool.

The action sequences, while mostly short and often times completely ridiculous, were still kind of fun to watch.

So really , to sum it all up, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, and Gambit guy were all good.  The action was so-so.  The story was garbage.  The creative differences they took from the source material was garbage.  The end was completely retarded in every way possible.

See XMOW if you want.  Unfortunately it’s just a summer action movie on par with Fantastic Four and X3.  There is no substance.  It’s just a movie you will forget about the second you leave the theater.

I give it 1 and half stars out of 4.

EDIT:  I got the Japan ending and not this Deadpool ending people keep talking about.

See this trailer before it’s taken off the interwebs!!  The Quicktime HD version will be online soon, but this should tide you over for now!  And for those counting, that’s back to back Megan Fox stories.  I am going to change the name of my blog to Megan Fox and Entertainment.

I get to see Wolverine tomorrow so stay tuned to S&E for a full review.

UPDATE:  Paramount has taken it down.  I told you to hurry.  Stay tuned tomorrow and I will post the real deal on this very page.

UPDATE 2:  HERE IT IS IN HD GLORY.

I really don’t have to put many words down…..you know everyone will see this just because Megan Fox and Josh Brolin are in it.

Cameron Diaz is in final negotiations to topline Warner Bros.’ legal comedy “Bobbie Sue,” with Donald De Line producing.  The story centers on a hard-charging female ambulance chaser whose mindset makes her the ideal candidate to be the face of a prestigious law firm when a powerful client is sued in a sexual discrimination case.

LOL.  Sorry.  But this just looks…..this looks horrible. 

Halloween was a masterpiece….then came all the sequels and then remake.  Now…part two of a remake. Sigh….  I will give Zombie credit though.  That mask looks wicked.

Kate Mara and Carl Gregg have joined the already awesome cast of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2.

You will remember Gregg from the first Iron Man.  He played Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.  While that may not be really shocking news because word on the streets is that S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers will play a more significant role in this Iron Man and all future Marvel properties, the real surprise is who Mara is playing.

You might be asking yourself who Kate Mara is…..maybe this will ring a bell:

Mara played that really hot girl in Marky Mark’s Shooter.  Anywho, Mara will be playing….wait for it….wait for it……..Mara is going to be playing a top secret character.  Gotcha.  No word on who Mara is playing and in fact, it’s being kept under wraps.  But since Gweneth Paltrow is back as Pepper Pots and Scarlett Johannson is Black Widow, what does that leave Mara with? Sharon Carter, Agent 13? Wasp?  Scarlet Witch?  (My guess says it could be any of the three.  I hope its Wasp.)

The new Mike Judge comedy Extract has a trailer now.  It’s a couple of days old but today was the first time it wound up in my inbox.  (Thanks again dleecubbiefan)

The film stars Jason Bateman,  Ben Affleck, and my girl Mila Kunis.  It looks hi-larious.  Check it out.

 I admit, I wasn’t huge into the Marvel Universe in my comic collecting days.  I primarily went with the Supermans and Batmans of the world.  For me, DC just wrote better stories.  I did however collect two Marvel books.  Punisher and Spider-Man.  Now, I can’t go into a full out rant on Punisher movies because really, I don’t even want to get started.  That is a whole other blog that is destined to be written.  I will go into Spider-Man and how I think the series can be improved.

First let me tell you my problems with the first three films so you can better understand where I am at with this.  Spider-Man 1 was a really great flick.  I saw it 3 times the first week it was out in theatres.  My only grievance with the movie is that they used Mary Jane too soon.  See, I feel that at the climax of the movie when the Green Goblin tosses Kirsten Dunst off the bridge, that should have been Gwen Stacey.  And she should have died.  Just like in the funny books.  And that would have solved a big problem in the series….Kirsten Dunst.

Next, Spider-Man 2.  Spidey 2 is the third best superhero movie of all time.  (Dark Knight is numero 1 and I will let you guess 2.)  I really don’t have a problem with it.  If they followed my formula from the first movie, they could have just hired another actress to play Mary Jane and introduce her in this movie.  Keep everything else the same.

Fact:  Spider-Man 3 was God awful.  It had so much potential in the early phases, but director Sam Raimi was forced to do something he didn’t want to do.  He used Venom.  Raimi was publicly peeved about Marvel wanting Venom in the flick, and subsequently when he was forced to put him in, he did a horrible job.  I don’t necessarily blame Raimi for everything, but if you don’t want a character in your movie, you need to man up and say no.

The Venom storyline could have been one of the greatest storylines ever told on the big screen.  They just needed to do it right.  They didn’t.  They set up Spider-Man 3 in Spider-Man 2 but didn’t come through with the story.  They introduced John Jonah Jameson’s kid in part 2 and he was clearly an astronaut.  All they had to do was “say” he was in space and then show the symbiote attaching to the shuttle.  Astronauts come home, Parker is there to take a photo, and just like that the symbiote is attached.  They didn’t need to go all Virgin Mary and make the thing fall out of the sky all Cloverfield-like.

With they symbiote attached (It’s not a suit Marvel and Raimi….it’s an alien that forms a suit.  It doesn’t stay in the dresser) It was time for Peter to be a dick.  No dancing…just waking up in the middle of the night and beating the snot out of bad guys.  He doesn’t want the suit….Eddie Brock is jealous of Peter Parker…that whole scene in the church…it stays.  Wanna know what leaves?  Sandman.  He was in the movie for 10 minutes anyways.  Get rid of the whole Sandman storyline and the whole emo Spidey thing, and you could have had another great movie.

Now you might have noticed a pattern here.  I stayed as close as humanly possible to the source material.  I am a stickler for the source material.  Just do it that way and everyone will be alright.  There is a reason the characters are so beloved.. It’s because everyone loves the source material.

Now, today SCI FI Wire chatted with director Sam Raimi and he had this to say:

“I hope we don’t react to these very good and sometimes bad superhero movies around us. I hope that we just [look] ever deeper into the truth of who Peter Parker really is—as a human being and the unique character, and that we celebrate that, which is a lot of the reason I want to make this next picture. I still believe I have an understanding of Peter Parker as the character that I have not quite put onto the screen yet,” he said.

Ok fine.  He doesn’t want to emulate other superhero flicks like The Dark Knight and he wants to stick to his guns.  Unfortunately he needs to stick to the source material more.  They have been setting up Lizard as a villian for 3 movies.  Go with that.  I even like the rumored Morbius villian arc.  As long as they stick to the source material.  If they screw up Spidey 4, it will be 10 years or more until we see the franchise rebooted.  We don’t want this to happen.

And that…is my opinion.

Angelina Jolie might be very very busy really soon.  The “Changeling” star is the frontrunner to play literary character Dr. Kay Scarpetta in a series of Mark Gordon directed  films based of the medical examiner in the novels by Patricia Cornwell.Though there are 16 Scarpetta novels, this film won’t be tied to a specific Cornwell mystery title.  They are going the route of new one shots featuring the opera loving coroner in the vein of “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Seven.”

In addition, Variety reports that Jolie is awaiting the script for “Wanted 2”, and is attached to a sequel to “Kung-Fu Panda”.

Charlie Hunnam (TVs “Sons of Anarchy”) told the good folks over at IGN Movies that he’s indeed in the running to play hammer-swinging medical student, Donald Blake - better known as ‘Thor’.Rumor has it that he has had one screen test so far- but it did involve trying on the blonde superhero’s iconic duds.   So take it for what it’s worth.

Previous reports suggested the frontrunner for the role of Thor was “True Blood” star Alexander Skarsgard. Talking to E Online though, Skarsgard said he doesn’t think he’ll get the gig.

Now, I know this sounds like a typical geek response, but…..Thor is HUGE!  Muscular!! He’s a freaking GOD for Christ’s sake!  These guys rumored to be in the hunt for the role are not big dudes.  Sure they may be sleek and cut up, but not muscular.  Ugh.  For the love of God Marvel, open up a muscle mag and find the next Arnold lurking about.

End of rant.